CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM [a] Introduction The goal of our Career Development Program is to provide individuals with the training necessary for them to have successful and independent careers in translational research in molecular imaging in cancer. We envision supporting two categories of individuals: physician scientists who are in their first faculty appointment, and postdoctoral fellows with relevant Ph.D. degrees. The program will be administered by an ICMIC Career Development Program Committee appointed and overseen by the Executive Steering Group. Career Development is of vital importance for the future success of molecular imaging and to be able to exploit discoveries made in the laboratory for affecting clinical care. Funds administered by VICMIC will be used to promote multidisciplinary training and career development in molecular imaging in cancer in several ways. The funds provided by the ICMIC grant for these purposes will be supplemented by additional monies provided by our institution, as outlined in the accompanying letter from the Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research at VUMC, Dr. Jeff Balser. With the combined fund we will be able to support 2-3 VICMIC fellowships each year, which will be awarded competitively to appropriate individual applicants or nominees, normally for 2 years duration each. These will either be full-time postdoctoral fellowships for Ph.D.-educated trainees, or career development awards of significant salary support for junior faculty, including physician scientists with clinical training, as described below. However, it must be emphasized that VICMIC will be well placed to build on and benefit from the very large number of training and career development programs that exist at Vanderbilt, including some that are already dedicated to highly relevant areas of research in cancer and imaging. The activities of the ICMIC will complement these efforts. Molecular imaging is still an emerging area of research, and there is a continuing need to attract scientists from different disciplines to this field. For that to occur successfully, specialized training must be provided at many different levels, for faculty and staff as well as post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. Below we highlight some of the current programs at Vanderbilt that address those needs, and we also describe additional efforts that will be made by the ICMIC Career Development Program to invest our limited resources strategically for maximal effect. In recognition of the critical need for investigators in this area, VUMC has committed $100,000/yrto support additional trainees in molecular imaging in cancer through the ICMIC program. Therefore, in total, the Career Development Program will be able to fund 2 or 3 awardees per year. We have developed strong faculty interest in molecular imaging through our recent activities within VICC and VUIIS, and will continue to attract faculty involvement via increased outreach programs and the use of grants for pilot studies via the ICMIC Discovery Grant program. At the postdoctoral level, we have in recent years competed successfully for NCI and NIBIB post-doctoral training programs (T32 and R25 grants) in each of cancer biology, breast cancer, cancer imaging, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, and radiation biology (details are given below), so there are already significant numbers of positions for postdoctoral trainees who are permanent US residents working in this and closely related areas. The program directors and preceptors of these training grants are all closely associated with VICMIC, and we anticipate a continuing steady stream of postdoctoral fellows to undertake training within VICMIC from those programs. In addition, we already also have assorted NIH institutional T32 pre-doctoral training grants e.g. in biomedical imaging (from NIBIB, P.I. Dr. Gore), cancer biology, and other relevant disciplines. Several of our training grants support both pre and postdoctoral trainees. There is therefore a steady supply of graduate trainees from existing graduate Ph.D. and M.D. Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering, biochemistry, physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, cancer biology, molecular physiology and biophysics, chemical and physical biology and the interdepartmental graduate program within the medical school (details of some of these are also given below). VUIIS faculty alone, for example, already supervise over 40 full time graduate students from these programs. These programs have strong educational components which are directly connected and overseen by the faculty within VICMIC and VUIIS. We therefore already have a substantial number of postdoctoral and pre-doctoral trainees in existing training programs engaged in molecular imaging in cancer and who would benefit from the VICMIC e.g. the 6 postdoctoral fellows supported by our R25 Cancer Imaging Training Program, and our 6 pre-doctoral trainees supported by our T32 in Biomedical Imaging. The majority of these trainees come either with strong backgrounds in physics, biomedical engineering or similar discipline, and they are then trained in biomedical applications, or they derive from biological sciences and learn technical aspects of imaging. There are already in place many lectures, lab rotations and enrichment programs to train experts in molecular imaging from these programs (some examples of relevant courses are described below). Our priorities for growth and investment of VICMIC funds will therefore occur mainly in two other areas of focus. First, we will provide fellowships consisting of salary support for junior faculty, trained in either basic or clinical sciences, to allow them to devote time and effort furthering their career development in molecular imaging. We will prioritize awards for qualified Physician Scientists in clinical departments with demonstrated potential to develop successful independent research careers at the interface of imaging and cancer care. We high- light below typical candidates for these awards selected from our current faculty and senior postdoctoral trainees. These individuals would identify research projects that match their interests and skills, but would have the time and resources to engage in further training in much the same way as K-awards awarded from NIH. Such fellowships would be invaluable for allowing promising investigators the time to develop independent research careers. These awards will be especially suited to postdoctoral fellows graduating from our training programs and for new clinical faculty interested in research careers. The criteria and selection process for these awards are described below. Second, despite our success in attracting and cultivating trainees with physical science backgrounds, within molecular imaging there is a chronic general shortage of appropriately trained postdoctoral chemists (organic, bio-, radio- or medicinal chemists, or individuals with skills bridging molecular biology and chemistry) With the interest and ability to contribute to molecular imaging. In many reports, this is the shortage that is identified as the major limitation on progress in the development of new imaging probes. We therefore will prioritize funds to support postdoctoral fellows with expertise and interest in chemistry, to train in cellular and molecular in vivo imaging and cancer biology. These opportunities will be directed specifically to graduating Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students or new postdoctoral trainees interested in changing career directions to embrace the needs for targeted probe development in molecular imaging of cancer. Appropriate curricula of didactic and laboratory training will be developed to meet the specific needs of the different types of trainees, taken from the courses and rotations described below, to ensure they become experts in the important problems and opportunities for molecular imaging in cancer biology.